Ashish Interbuild Pvt Ltd

Background
Ashish Interbuild was founded in 2001, and is today a 80 employee strong infrastructure and construction company. It was started when Mr Ashish Thakkar was granted an opportunity to build a Pizza Hut. Having pounced on that opportunity, he continued with the construction business and founded Ashish Interbuild. After about ten years of being in business in India, they have achieved an annual revenue of close to Rs. 80,00,000 annually. It is a trusted and sought after name, and is currently executing multiple projects across the country. The specialise in commercial buildings as well as restaurants and hotels.

Why ERP
Focus on efficiency has been mentioned has one of the strengths of Ashish Interbuild. Over the years, it became obvious that this strength would be difficult to maintain without the use of a comprehensive IT solution. As the company grew, it became necessary to eliminate cumbersome manual processes that are error prone. A need was felt to achieve automation and integration across activities. It was realised that an ERP solution would help not just maintain, but improve efficiency, as the company grew.

Challenges
At the time, there was no established solution for construction companies. While the fundamentals of ERP remain the same, i.e. achieving efficiency, the needs of companies in different sectors vary widely. Ashish Interbuild found itself facing a blank wall when it started searching for an ERP solution. One of the biggest differences between a construction company and other companies like, say, a hardware manufacturing company, is that the former has projects at various remote locations running simultaneously. They need a system to track job status at all locations without having to constantly call up project managers or rely on emails, both of which are inefficient procedures. Ashish Interbuild further suffered from a problem of having no vendor collaboration network. As a construction company with multiple projects running simultaneously, it has good purchasing power. However, the lack of a collaborating tool across various sites meant that it was unable to utilize this power and was instead paying standard rates for materials. To summarize, Ashish Interbuild needed a system that would enable it to get daily updates on its various projects spread over a huge geographical location, and also utilize its purchasing power.

Requirements
Aside from achieving vendor collaboration and tracking of projects at remote locations, Ashish Interbuild also had some other wishes. They wanted to totally avoid customization. Their view was that, during the process of customization, the built-in symmetry of the in-built

logic system of the ERP software would be disturbed. At best, it would lead to minor bugs. At worst, it could render the entire system completely useless. They also wanted to avoid complicating things. Being overly ambitious with their first implementation of ERP would lead to mistakes that might grow over time. Ashish Interbuild wanted a partner with a good understanding of their core business process and sound integration logic. This was necessary to ensure smooth implementation of their first ERP solution. In summary, Ashish Interbuild wanted to avoid customization. define simple objectives. choose a partner with an understanding of core business processes.

Solution chosen: eResource ERP

eResource ERP is comprehensively built keeping the construction industry in mind. While developing the eresource ERP for Construction Industry, core functional areas such as Project Monitoring and Control, Sales Management, Tendering, Bill of Quantities, Purchase and Supplier Management, Onsite Engineers Portal, Material Management, Labour and Contractors Management, Accounts Management and Human Resource Management have been given extra prominence. It provides methods to monitor all activities, including those in pre-construction and post-construction phases. Further, onsite activities can be accessed from anywhere at any time, making it easy for managers on the move to track progress. A scheduling interface with gantt chart module makes the progress tracking even easier.

Implementation of ERP
Ashish Interbuild and eResource decided to go in for something similar to a big-bang approach. Phases of a standard project management life cycle were followed. After understanding the unique requirements of Ashish Interbuild, eResource started work on planning and resource allocation. Tracking and controlling, reporting and reviewing were performed in a cycle till a suitable software solution was achieved. The project closed with the completion and assessment of the ERP solution. Along the way, various methods of risk management were used.

Benefits of ERP
Better estimation procedures resulting in more accurate estimations. Review of engineers estimate of probable cost. Issue of subcontracts, purchase orders, prime contracts and potential change orders then release of these items to accounting for review, approval, and use. Access subcontract status, initial and revised totals, PO status, pending changes, approved and implemented changes as well as amounts invoiced, retained and paid. Access reports that have existing templates and inquiries or a capability to design their own reports. An effective project monitoring system that allows for tracking of multiple projects simultaneously.

Readily configured Master tables and items for infrastructure projects makes processes faster. Mobile computing allows managers on the move to access reports from anywhere at any time. A simplified supply chain procedure as a result of vendor collaboration. Creation of projects based on receipt of tenders and creation of tender responses. Creation of budgets based on detailed BOQ-based project estimation.

Conclusion
Ashish Interbuild started seeing results of ERP implementation almost immediately. For starters, the time required to generate a month end report was cut to twelve days from the earlier twenty days, a 40% change. Since data now had a single entry point, redundancy and duplication was minimized, leading to better information accuracy. The vendor collaboration meant that not only were costs reduced, equipment downtime was also minimized since parts could now be located faster and closer to the needed area. ERP implementation led to streamlining of various processes including management control and distribution. Ashish Interbuild Pvt Ltd was able to obtain an enterprise wide view of its operations and daily activities, hence allowing for a centralized management control. The advantages that Ashish Interbuild has seen from its implementation of ERP by eResource are clear and tangible. The company is moving further at a faster pace because of its streamlined, integrated business activities that allows for complete automation of its earlier manual processes.

References
http://www.eresourceerp.com/Infrastructure-erp.pdf http://www.aspirtek.com/case-studies.html http://www.epicor.com/MRCPR/Epicor-Rolston%20Home%20Building%20Centre-CSENS.pdf http://www.tgiltd.com/case-studies/nu-west-construction-products.html www.ashishinterbuild.com/about_us.html http://www.business-software.com/erp/about-erp/why-do-you-need-an-erp-solution.php